One type of pile weatherstripping is manufactured by weaving a textile strip from polymer yarn and applying a resilient backing to increase rigidity and to prevent the yarn from unraveling and the textile strip from fraying. The yarn forms a pile extending from the upper surface of the backing, which is flexible. Typical backings include metals or plastic coatings.
It is often desirable to splice the ends of portions of weatherstripping together. For instance, a door or window manufacturer may want to join the end of one spool of weatherstripping to the beginning of another spool. In another scenario, flaws may be encountered in the manufacture of the weatherstripping that require removal, thereby necessitating the need to splice the resulting end pieces together.
Traditionally, the splicing of weatherstripping has been accomplished by the use of adhesive tape or by the use of a material added to the weatherstripping to create a bond, such as a wire mesh. In another adaptation, two pieces of textile strip are spliced, prior to the application of the backing, by adding a plastic material across the lower surface of the butted ends of the strip and welding the weatherstripping together ultrasonically.
Several problems have been encountered with traditional methods of splicing weatherstripping. One problem is that the joint created can have less structural integrity than the non-welded portion of the weatherstripping, which makes the joint prone to failure in use. For example, a weak joint may not adequately support the pile on the upper surface of the weatherstripping, which can result in air or water bypassing the weatherstripping. Another problem is that the addition of adhesives and other splice materials to weatherstripping increases the cross-sectional profile of the weatherstripping, which can interfere with the process of inserting the weatherstripping into a door or window groove or a channel, especially when using automated insertion equipment.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for splicing weatherstripping that overcomes the difficulties encountered by conventional methods.